


Iron & Silk

by catmiint



Series: no place for a hero [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Autistic Character(s), Dark Knight Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Relationship, Unresolved grief, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 18:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catmiint/pseuds/catmiint
Summary: It was often said that the Warrior of Light was more of a Xaela than her half-brother, but the truth behind that statement sometimes stung.





	Iron & Silk

**Author's Note:**

> Ko'ruri (half Xaela/half Raen Dark Knight) and Atlan (Xaela Dragoon) are half-siblings by the same father and this drabble was me exploring that relationship a bit. They have a very complicated relationship in the sense that they both love and care for each other very much, but there's a lot of heavy feelings and outside influences there that make it hard. 
> 
> The dragon siblings are the only two FC members present, but Masya (Miqo'te Samurai/Machinist/General Jack of All Trades) is mentioned.

The words came out without thinking.

 

“You know, Atlan, you remind me a lot of my mother.” 

 

Instantly Ko’ruri wished she had not said them, cursing as her hand slipped and the knife sliced a layer of skin off her thumb. A drop of blood stained the figurine she had been carving and she sighed, setting it down emphatically. It was not often, if at all, that Ko’ruri talked about her mother. That was a wound that had never healed properly, left to fester for years as she felt bidden to keep quiet about it. In her tribe, the mention of the Raen woman who had wooed one of their hunters only to disappear and leave him heartbroken was avoided. From bits she had heard whispered behind her back, their father had been devastated by her mother leaving in the night without a word. So, for his and Atlan’s sakes, she barely breathed word of her mother—to the point where she couldn’t recall whether Atlan definitively knew that she was dead.

 

Atlan startled and looked up from his book, blinking in surprise as he glanced over to where Ko’ruri sat. He hesitated before asking, “What do you mean?” 

 

“Ah, I shouldn’t have said that,” she mumbled softly, “forget I mentioned it.” 

 

“No it’s just—“ he paused as if looking for the words “—you’ve never really said much about her.” 

 

Ko’ruri lowered her head, not meeting his gaze as she rubbed at the bloodstain on the figure she had spent hours carving out of a block of oak.  _ It’s all but ruined _ , she mused. The drop of blood had soaked deep into he wood comprising the face of the cat, something meant to be a gift for Masya. 

 

“Ko…” Atlan said, a warning edge to his voice. He wasn’t a very pushy person, but she could tell that curiosity now gnawed at his edges after she mentioned that. 

 

“I know how you must feel me comparing you to a Raen woman…” She trailed off and looked up through a curtain of her ivory hair. Atlan seemed contemplative, his brow furrowed. 

 

“It’s nothing new, you’ve always been more Xaela than me,” he tried to make a joke of it, but it fell flat and the uncertainty shone through his tone. They both knew it was a bit of a sore spot, there but rarely mentioned. “C’mon, Ko, tell me about her.” 

 

Ko’ruri sighed and abruptly stood up, stretching her legs after being seated for so long. Hard conversations were never her specialty, and the restlessness bubbled inside of her. She turned to examine the spines of books on the bookshelf as if looking for something. “She was very, uh, dual-toned,” she began. 

 

Atlan shot her a quizzical look, “That means?” 

 

“I’m no wordsmith.” She shrugged, “I guess what I mean is she was a very complicated woman. She was iron and silk, fire and ice—as cliché as that sounds.” 

 

“She was Doman, right?”

 

“Eh, depends. She lived outside of Doma itself with her clan for much of her life. It wasn’t until they rejected her that she moved into the city. Its customs were as foreign to her as they might be to you. She was ostracized even within the Raen communities there.” 

 

“Why?” He questioned, voice a bit tight. 

 

“I don’t know all the details… I was too young to understand it much and it’s not something the Echo has saw fit to show me. I don’t think her elders approved of her tryst with our father. She all but abandoned them for a Xaela boy.” 

 

Atlan murmured under his breath, likely not meaning for Ko’ruri to hear, “And then she abandoned the tribe…” She shifted her feet, uncomfortable at that. 

 

“Ugh, I shouldn’t have brought this up. I know how it all sounds.” 

 

“You gotta finish now or else I might be a little offended you’re comparing me to her,” he tried again to speak lightly and jokingly, but there was a hurt edge. 

 

Gods damn her struggle with words.

 

“The point is, she raised me alone in a place that was very strange to her. She lived in a part of Doma not exactly known for being quite so friendly to Au Ra. It was hard for both of us, but especially for her. She danced for a living, entertaining the very men whose wives sneered at her in the markets. Life was hard and gil was always tight, but she persisted.” 

 

That got a bit of a smile from Atlan, “There’s that iron will you hear about in Raen so much.” 

 

“Yes, exactly. She was very strong, in more ways than one. She knew the ways of Doman rogues—much like Yugiri—but violence was never her strong suit. Like you in your younger years, she kept odd hours, always content to simply exist and be at peace in the night. It was enough for her to feel the wind on her skin during a hunt instead of the thrill of a kill. None of that meant she wasn’t afraid to bare her steel and defend herself or what she thought was right.”

 

Atlan made an interested noise. She could feel his curious gaze fixed on the back of her head. Running her fingers across the spine of a book, she sighed and turned again to look at him. 

 

“You speak very highly of her,” he said cautiously. Damn these difficult conversations—if only she kept her mouth shut. 

 

“I miss her very much,” Ko’ruri mumbled in a low tone, “it still feels fresh, a wound not given air to properly heal.”

 

“So she is, you know...dead?” Atlan had looked like he was trying to find a gentler way to ask this, but gave up in favor of a blunt query. 

 

If she were anyone else, the way he asked might have been off putting. She was silent for a few moments, voice quieted by the strange feeling constricting her throat.

 

“I didn’t mean to… All these years you never really said why you just showed up at the tribe one day. No one knew whether to believe she died or you simply ran away.” 

 

Ko’ruri hesitated before speaking up again, “She suddenly got sick one day. Too sick to dance. We never really had much gil to go around, and suddenly she couldn’t work. I tried very hard to get enough gil for her to visit a healer, but all they did is say she needed medicine—medicine that was too rare and expensive for me to get her.” There was a wetness on her face, and she reached up to her cheek, surprised to find her fingers slick with tears. She was crying? “I did what I could but one thing turned into another and… she didn’t last very long after we lost our apartment.” 

 

“Ko…” Atlan’s voice was soft and he reached out to her. She hadn’t noticed him stand up. The pain was raw in her chest, and she clenched her fists at her side. In the back of her head, Fray’s whispers began to beckon to her. Her half-brother’s hand brushed across her forearm and she jerked away, anger briefly flaring. 

 

“Don’t touch me,” she ground out. 

 

She hated feeling this weak, crying over something done and over with years ago. Especially when she knew that she had upset Atlan, comparing him to her Raen mother. 

 

A sensitive topic. A hard conversation. Buried feelings. 

 

He wavered, not knowing whether to press forward or back off. She had always been volatile and guarded, hard for him to approach in situations like this—and that was even before the whole Dark Knight mess. This was untested territory, they both realized; emotions usually kept under wraps threatening to lash out, emboldened by the coiling dark magic inside. Finding the words were difficult, but he stepped forward again, “She sounds like a strong woman despite her flaws. And I…” his voice trailed off as he struggled to put voice to feeling, “I’m not ashamed or angry to be compared to her.” 

 

Vigorously rubbing at the tears on her cheeks, she responded warily, “You’re not?” 

 

“No, I mean, I was a bit at first but,” he shook his head, “you care about her a lot. I’m honored, in a way. I don’t  _ want  _ to be ashamed of not being ‘Xaela enough’ for the tribe or anyone else, not when there are Raen out there like you or your mom.” 

 

Ko’ruri’ tried to speak, but her voice felt tight in her throat and tongue heavy in her mouth. One of her moods, as her father might say. It was not that she didn’t want to talk or was being stubborn, but rather that sometimes the stress clamped down and strangled her voice. The world was too much for her sometimes, her head struggling to process everything around her. 

 

Atlan smiled sympathetically, “It’s a lot, huh?” 

 

She nodded simply, glancing to the side in embarrassment.

 

Without warning, he closed the gap and pulled her into an awkward hug, his large and broad form enveloping her slight frame. It was to both of their surprise that Ko’ruri did not flinch away or squirm in his grip, usually uncomfortable at such intense displays of affection. Instead, she melted into his touch and sighed wearily. 

 

“It’s okay, Ko. I’ll be here when your voice comes back,” his voice was low and rumbling, feeling almost like a cat’s purr with him so close to her. 

 

She focused on the world around, on her heartbeat and her brother’s voice and how her bare feet felt against the wood floors. Memories flashed through her mind of finding him for the first time. She had scarcely been six summers, and the cold air of the steppes had frozen her to her core. Her feet were bare like they were now, having had sold her new shoes to pay a doctor to visit her mother in vain. 

 

It was Atlan, newly in his teen years, that had stumbled across her while he was learning the ways of the hunt. 

  
Ko’ruri could not speak with her voice strangled by cold and stress. Could not call out for him, tell him that he was her brother. Atlan still found her and picked her up, holding her close to his chest. He did not know who she was or where she came from in that moment, but he had understood her and quiet as an owl’s wings whispered to her,  _ “It’s okay, I’ll be here when your voice comes back.” _


End file.
